New Argument: "I don't buy organic food because it's cheaper?!?"
I work in a food co-op on weekends. This very part-time employment comes with one amazing fringe benefit: a 20% discount on pretty much everything except dairy. This discount, for those of you not familiar with organic food/co-op prices, means that I can shop there and spend about the same amount as I would at a convential grocery store. Again, if that doesn't mean anything to you, let me clarify.
The huge price jump between conventional and organic food, is for some, prohibitive. The most frequently cited reason for not "buying organic" or joining a co-op, is that the costs are too high. I have generally believed this to be true; I see it play out whenever I am at work.
But last week, at a friend's house, I noticed a bag of Tostitos--a mainstream, conventional snack product if ever there was one. The price was stamped in ink, right on the bag, meaning you will find that price most anywhere, and you will only pay less if your supermarket is participiating in some sort of promotion or "cap" special.
Anyway, this price, for what I believe was a 13 oz. bag, was $3.69. I thought about this for a minute. Tostitos, made by Frito-Lay, pulls out all the stops to produce chips efficiently: they have enormous processing plants, they buy in massive quantities from equally massive agribusiness distributors and they increase shelf-life (and cut costs) by hydrogenating already relatively cheap oils, like canola. So why $3.69?
For less, at my admittedly high-priced co-op, we sell a larger bag of chips made with only organic ingredients. This bag of chips, if you are going to go the junk-food route, is the way to go: small farmers grow the corn, and a local milling company tortilla-izes the corn and makes chips using a non-hydrogenated, more costly oil, like safflower. This process is comparatively expensive, and we have felt it justifies us pricing the product at $3.59, which makes it our most expensive chip.
So how can it be, that a lovingly, painstakingly crafted snack food item, processed with the most expensive (read: organic) techniques around and sold at a place that generally has to mark items up to compensate for small distributors who charge more, winds up being cheaper than a mass-produced, genetically engineered, pesticide-sprayed, mechanically-induced item that has been processed using the cheapest methods around?
I think the answer is in the rhetoric. For years now, organic foods have been creeping into the mainstream, though they are still not there. This slow march forward has given the grocery industry plenty of time to craft a strategy. Consumers initially have seen the prices of organic foods and have been occasionally turned off. Now, like a reflex, one might say that organic food is of course, more expensive.
With the mindset already well-established, the large food corporations know that they have some patronage because of the lower costs. "If people believe something, they won't investigate it, so who's going to notice if we keep raising our prices, ten cents here, twenty there?"
Currently, co-op shoppers are still outpaying their conventional grocery counterparts, and I expect we will for some time yet. But look for a leveling of the field in the future, as organic production costs come down and as conventional producers realize they need to raise prices to compensate for the sales they are losing (to organic foods). In the meantime, keep your eyes open for conventional grocery products costing more than their organic counterparts, here and there, but not everywhere...not yet, that is.
- Co-ops tend to stock "natural," especially organic foods.
- Organic foods are grown without pesticides and commercial fertilizers
- Pesticides are killers, period. There is no safe chemical pesticide; they're all neurotoxic at best, highly carcinogenic at worst.
The huge price jump between conventional and organic food, is for some, prohibitive. The most frequently cited reason for not "buying organic" or joining a co-op, is that the costs are too high. I have generally believed this to be true; I see it play out whenever I am at work.
But last week, at a friend's house, I noticed a bag of Tostitos--a mainstream, conventional snack product if ever there was one. The price was stamped in ink, right on the bag, meaning you will find that price most anywhere, and you will only pay less if your supermarket is participiating in some sort of promotion or "cap" special.
Anyway, this price, for what I believe was a 13 oz. bag, was $3.69. I thought about this for a minute. Tostitos, made by Frito-Lay, pulls out all the stops to produce chips efficiently: they have enormous processing plants, they buy in massive quantities from equally massive agribusiness distributors and they increase shelf-life (and cut costs) by hydrogenating already relatively cheap oils, like canola. So why $3.69?
For less, at my admittedly high-priced co-op, we sell a larger bag of chips made with only organic ingredients. This bag of chips, if you are going to go the junk-food route, is the way to go: small farmers grow the corn, and a local milling company tortilla-izes the corn and makes chips using a non-hydrogenated, more costly oil, like safflower. This process is comparatively expensive, and we have felt it justifies us pricing the product at $3.59, which makes it our most expensive chip.
So how can it be, that a lovingly, painstakingly crafted snack food item, processed with the most expensive (read: organic) techniques around and sold at a place that generally has to mark items up to compensate for small distributors who charge more, winds up being cheaper than a mass-produced, genetically engineered, pesticide-sprayed, mechanically-induced item that has been processed using the cheapest methods around?
I think the answer is in the rhetoric. For years now, organic foods have been creeping into the mainstream, though they are still not there. This slow march forward has given the grocery industry plenty of time to craft a strategy. Consumers initially have seen the prices of organic foods and have been occasionally turned off. Now, like a reflex, one might say that organic food is of course, more expensive.
With the mindset already well-established, the large food corporations know that they have some patronage because of the lower costs. "If people believe something, they won't investigate it, so who's going to notice if we keep raising our prices, ten cents here, twenty there?"
Currently, co-op shoppers are still outpaying their conventional grocery counterparts, and I expect we will for some time yet. But look for a leveling of the field in the future, as organic production costs come down and as conventional producers realize they need to raise prices to compensate for the sales they are losing (to organic foods). In the meantime, keep your eyes open for conventional grocery products costing more than their organic counterparts, here and there, but not everywhere...not yet, that is.
posted by Kenneth Blumenfeld at
10:59 PM
2 Comments
